Best Ancient / Medieval Military History Movies: I'll start...

[Nagasoup]

I despise people who are grotesquely obsessed with historical accuracy.
If I wanted to read about history,
Id read about history.

Actually, the people who ARE genuinely interested in history don't watch movies to learn the history, but rather, they know the history beforehand, then watch the movie, and are pissed off when it is nothing like what they've read.

In fact, it is the people who ARE NOT "grotesquely obsessed" (seriously? its grotesque to like history?) with history that actually go to movies to learn! And what happens? They learn a false, BASTARDIZED version of "history" which they take to be the truth! With the average person today being completely clueless about history, what movie producers have done, is REWRITE HISTORY.

Movies, are in effect, much more powerful than any history textbook, thus the massive historical inaccuracies (like the example with Braveheart someone mentioned) is not only insulting to the people who do understand history, but quite scary due to their potential effects on the ones who don't.

Book burning? Soviet style propaganda? They are NOTHING compared to Hollywood, and that is what worries me.

[Christo]

Book burning? Soviet style propaganda? They are NOTHING compared to Hollywood, and that is what worries me.

Remember the old saying?

History is written by the Victors.

I think dictators from other eras would love our little gadgets, TV-s and all that stuff.
 Sure, there was the Church back in the day, but this is even more scary.

[Jan_van_Zuidwijk]

Voyna I Mir...

You have got to love the uniforms... and the 500,000 extras

[Osiris]

BOOKS ARE BETTER  (1 series, about 10 books, "the last kingdom")

!!!!! HOW COULD I FORGET!!!
MAIN KING IS RAGNAR, of the Norseman, or "Nords" ; )
SOUND FAMILIAR (warband)

1. reading "the last kingdom" now. just omg.
lore placed over history about the Danish invasion of england.

wut. if your reading Cornwells books about Uhtred then they are some of the most epic books written but Ragnar isnt a King

[Overdriven]

wut. if your reading Cornwells books about Uhtred then they are some of the most epic books written but Ragnar isnt a King

Aaah yeah those books are good

[Thomek]

well movies are movies.

You can't make an economically successful and realistic war movie taking all aspects into account. Movies are business and have to make back what they cost to make. When it comes to war movies.. I think what films can communicate to a larger degree that other medias is to engage us emotionally in the tragedy as well as give some hint about how it would have been in certain situation. (i.e. opening scene of saving private ryan) Although the film was probably very far from realities in how intense it must have been, it can help us imagine how bad it was.

Movies have to tell a story in 1 1/2 to 2 hours, you need a target audience, you need some love, some violence, some sex, some drama. After the main stuff is covered, it is little screen time left for giving a balanced account of the circumstances. For filmmakers, the main point is to communicate the drama of the main character.. Sold in a setting of war.

Not all films are like this though..

btw.. the best/worst war movie ever is russian: Come and See.
Kind of a subjective tale of the chaotic war in ukraine (wwii) seen from a young boy's perspective. One of the saddest and most powerful films you will ever see. It's also fairly realistic in many ways, although everything is subjective from the boys perspective. (they used real bullets and real artillery shells for some scenes, and the boy actor was put on heavy soviet psychodrugs.. )

[Osiris]

Hollywoods historical films are good as long as you dont expect them to be in any way true You must realise that in hollywood

1. America is the greatest and does no wrong
2. The English and Russians are all evil
3. Anything the English or Russians do right they turn into americans
and 4. 1 american can defeat multiple enemies of a different nationality

examples

U-571 - Americans capture a U boat and steal enigma machine and documents. In reality U-571 was sunk by australians and U-570 was captured by the Royal Navy.
Braveheart - Almost nothing in this film is remotly accurate (hell they didnt even wear kilts at that time)
Gladiator - Not even close but still epic
The Patriot - Mel gibson again nuff said
Last Samurai - granted i dont think they wanted to be accurate

Now these are great films in their own right but just dont expect anything to be true its a film after all <3

[bredeus]

Throne of Blood and Red Beard :>

[Ujin]

Throne of Blood

weeaboo

[bredeus]

Was a weaboo then ralized that samurais were homo

[whitepaladin]

kingdom of heaven,monty python and the holy grail and ivanhoe are my favorites!

[Overdriven]

kingdom of heaven

Only if it's the extended version. If you're not talking about that...I demand you watch it and then restate your like love of Kingdom of Heaven

[Penitent]

I actually saw a good weeabo movie while on a flight from Korea.  It's "War of the Arrow."  Maybe not weeabo cuz it was Koreans, not Japanese, but it was actually pretty awesome.

[Osiris]

slightly off topic

Warriors by Terry Shappert is a pretty awesome TV Docu series

[CrazyCracka420]

Saw Red Cliff: Theatrical version the other day, my favorite war movie ever.  Set in 200 AD China.

Showing actual military formations and fighting that includes gory scenes of people being run through with spears and swords.  Not to mention goes over the diplomatic and politics of the war.

Wish there was some cool movies like this set in middle ages Europe, so many good battles and wars and prolonged countries hating each other during this period. 

For TV shows I really like the Tudors, and I've yet to see game of thrones, but look forward to seeing that series. 

A knights tale was a pretty good middle ages movie too, but on a small scale.